Overview

The Aesthetic Sense of Life is a fast-moving book about how to see the world and get value from living every day with the ""everyday."" Do the infinite number of sensations we're surrounded with every day have intrinsic value? If not, what gives them value? Who appreciates the sunrise if we don't? Is it enough for just us to appreciate it? Or do we have to share it? The Aesthetic Sense of Life considers and answers to questions such as these in clear, readable prose, offering a way of looking at life that makes clear its value and its meaning. The aesthetic sense of life is neither the viewpoint of the saints—for whom the sensations of the world are mere murmuring and illusion—nor the viewpoint of those completely fulfilled by their things, their gadgets, the particulars of their own lives. Most of us fall in the middle between these two extremes: we appreciate, say, a good cup of coffee, a power tool, a new set of towels, or a juicy steak, but don't think the answer to the riddle of existence is to be found in any of these. We appreciate them without thinking them sufficient. What's missing from them? What's missing is this: a sense that they can give meaning to life. The Aesthetic Sense of Life proposes that meaning is found not in these particulars, but in consciousness of the patterns they form. The feel of our towels or the taste of our coffee is just for us. Others have their own sensations, so they don't need ours. What we can share with other people, and thus use to re-establish the bonds of human warmth, are the patterns made by these particulars, something others can appreciate as well. Awareness of these patterns constitutes the aesthetic sense of life, which gives richness and meaning to the everyday.

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Reviews

Bruce Fleming (Professor of English, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland) focused upon how we should view the world around us and derive value from living fully in the present. Professor Fleming deftly considers basic answers to basic questions in an articulate and 'reader friendly' text making clear the value and meaning of becoming 'life aware' every minute of our waking day. The Aesthetic Sense of Life? is a cogent and persuasive argument that the meaning of our lives is to be found in the ordinary patterns and the multitude of small life experiences from which those patterns are derived. Indeed, that is our very awareness of the details of those patterns that create our aesthetic appreciation for the richness and meaning of the 'everyday.' -- . * Midwest Book Review, June 2008 *

Bruce Fleming (Professor of English, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland) focused upon how we should view the world around us and derive value from living fully in the present. Professor Fleming deftly considers basic answers to basic questions in an articulate and 'reader friendly' text making clear the value and meaning of becoming 'life aware' every minute of our waking day. The Aesthetic Sense of Life? is a cogent and persuasive argument that the meaning of our lives is to be found in the ordinary patterns and the multitude of small life experiences from which those patterns are derived. Indeed, that is our very awareness of the details of those patterns that create our aesthetic appreciation for the richness and meaning of the 'everyday.'--June 2008 The Midwest Book Review

Bruce Fleming (Professor of English, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland) focused upon how we should view the world around us and derive value from living fully in the present. Professor Fleming deftly considers basic answers to basic questions in an articulate and 'reader friendly' text making clear the value and meaning of becoming 'life aware' every minute of our waking day. The Aesthetic Sense of Life? is a cogent and persuasive argument that the meaning of our lives is to be found in the ordinary patterns and the multitude of small life experiences from which those patterns are derived. Indeed, that is our very awareness of the details of those patterns that create our aesthetic appreciation for the richness and meaning of the 'everyday.' -- . Midwest Book Review, June 2008

Bruce Fleming (Professor of English, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland) focused upon how we should view the world around us and derive value from living fully in the present. Professor Fleming deftly considers basic answers to basic questions in an articulate and 'reader friendly' text making clear the value and meaning of becoming 'life aware' every minute of our waking day. The Aesthetic Sense of Life? is a cogent and persuasive argument that the meaning of our lives is to be found in the ordinary patterns and the multitude of small life experiences from which those patterns are derived. Indeed, that is our very awareness of the details of those patterns that create our aesthetic appreciation for the richness and meaning of the 'everyday.' -- June 2008 Midwest Book Review

Author Information

Bruce Fleming is a professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. His most recent works include Annapolis Autumn: Life, Death and Literature at the U.S. Naval Academy (New Press, 2005) and Why Liberals and Conservatives Clash (Routledge, 2006). He has won an O. Henry award for short fiction and the Antioch Review Award for Distinguished Prose, a career award. Fleming is the author of a dozen books including the experimental novel Twilley, which critics compared to works by T.S. Eliot, Henry James, Proust, Thoreau, and David Lynch, and of a collection of dance essays called Sex, Art and Audience. His books for University Press of America include Art and Argument; Science and the Self; Sexual Ethics; and The New Tractatus, among others. He is a graduate of Haverford College, with subsequent degrees from the University of Chicago and Vanderbilt University.

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